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Telephone Scam (UK & possibly EU)

You get a call from a well spoken guy from "the information team" who asks you to call a number to "collect an important message"

Numbers in the range of 0871-20894xx

This will cost you £0.10 per minute and you will doubtless be kept waiting until you hang up.

From my research it seems that the people you talk to are just recordings

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

They used to be more common, but there are still some, that trick you into calling a number from a weird country, then you get charged in the triple digits per minute, I don't know if they found a way to stop or something because i don't really see them any more.

Well, in the UK, there are the premium numbers that cost maybe £1.50 per minute and there are "business numbers" that cost £0.10 as opposed to maybe £0.03 for a prime time call. This can be much more expensive if you use a mobile (cell) phone

The premium numbers are regulated but the business ones are not (until 2008).

The premium numbers are the ones typically used by "diallers", but they are not very common now, as the regulation stops the scammers getting any money.

I know that the "business number" scam has been used in Germany as well as the UK.

Another method is to use an "official looking" postcard or letter saying that there is a parcel waiting to be collected, and asking you to ring a premium number to arrange collection............

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

True, but I think many people do what I do, which is have a phone modem as well, for when the cable does down. I need my connection for work so there absolutely can't be any time that I can't access the web.

You are right there Joe, most machines still have a 56.6 dial up modem, particularly laptops.

However, a dialler would generally not work because you don't have it connected whilst your broadband is working. At least, that is the typical UK setup.

The reason I mentioned these two scams is that we are approaching Christmas and the New Year, so it is the time when people might expect unsolicited messages and parcels.

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

Yes, in the UK at any rate, more and more people are using broadband or cable connections so these diallers aren't the problem they used to be. I once worked in a BT call centre and we used to get lots of calls from people querying their phone bills as they had huge amounts of very short, premium rate calls recorded, which were shown as "failed modem calls", ie they had diallers on their system. They were never very happy to learn they were actually going to have to pay the bill!